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Queen of the Sweet Potato Queens

By RONDA RICH

Whenever one of her legion of fans learns that I am friends with the boss of the Sweet Potato Queens, Jill Conner Browne, dazed admiration slips across the face.

“You actually know her?” she will ask before delighted laughter escapes from her throat. The mere thought of the Mississippi-born humorist makes her readers smile or giggle. “She must be a hoot.”

“Actually, the real Jill is nothing like her persona,” I always reply. “She’s quiet, soft-spoken and is a dedicated mother and daughter.”

Without exception, the fan always shakes her head in bewilderment, trying to grasp the image I have just presented.

Jill Conner Browne is the Dolly Parton of the book world. She shrewdly took a gag and made it profitable by creating a cottage industry of red-wigged, tiara-wearing, majorette-booted hilarity. She turned a parody of beauty queens into a celebration of hard-fought survival.

Until a few years ago when fame and fortune called, Jill by no stretch of the imagination had had an easy life. She was a single, hard-working mom who was barely getting by as a fitness trainer in Jackson, Miss.

Love had done her wrong and left her broke. But like a tenacious Southern woman, she buckled under, worked hard and continued to embrace laughter and humor by organizing a hometown group of Sweet Potato Queens.

We met while on tour for our first books. Both of us had written about Southern women but we had written about Southern women as different from each other as Rosalyn Carter is from Dolly Parton.

My women were skirt-smoothing, pearl-wearing, casserole-toting, engraved note card devotees while Jill’s were sequin-wearing, sassy-talking, sweet potato-throwing, parade lovers.

From Jill, I first learned about the various sub-cultures of Southern women and the threads of commonality that weave her women together with mine. Both are strong, loyal, determined, feminine and gorgeously wrapped in humor.

At an event we did together in Nashville, someone from the audience asked Jill how she had concocted the image of the Sweet Potato Queens.

“Growing up, I always wanted to be a petite, big-chested red-head,” she responded, throwing a hand and smile toward me as gentle giggles rippled through the audience. “But this is what I turned out to be.” She brushed a wisp of short brown hair from her face and unfolded her lean six-foot frame from the chair.

Laughter roared. Jill went on to explain that the creation of the SPQ was an exaggeration of that childhood desire.

“The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love” had only recently been released but it was gathering enormous steam and the cursive hand-writing was on the wall: it was destined to become a best-selling legend.

“My pastor and my entire church is praying for the success of this book,” commented the woman whose faith is as much a part of her as that incredible funny bone.

Having read the book, I knew it was brassy, raucous and edgy. The words escaped before I could stop them.

“Has your pastor read this book?”

Jill threw her head back and laughed delightedly because that is part of her charm; she doesn’t take herself seriously.

Success has been swift and strong for her, coming in the form of a seven-figure publishing deal and Delta Burke signing on to play the boss of the SPQ in a television series. Without question, those prayers have been answered.

I keep telling my preacher that he ought to pray for me more than he does.